Has to do with use of trademarked logos. In the US permission from the trademark holder must be obtained before it is used in a commercial product. This is why insurance commercials that show cars always have the maker's logo pixalated out and t-shirts with logos are pixalated out of most reality shows.

__________________The trouble with trouble is that it started out as fun.

Thanks for that. Over here product placement is the name of the game. The BBC is funded by a licence fee and runs no ads at all. Manufactures would sell their soul for a character in a TV drama to sit down to a bowl of their breakfast cereal with a strategically placed box on the breakfast table. The BBC does get criticised for this. Commercial chanels have no such restrictions. Likewise I read an interesting article the other day about how 'Skyfall' was funded. But I hear what you say about logos shown without permission.

I remember the ITV screening dramas and soaps showing families sitting around the table munching Kelloggs corn flakes. The name on the packet would be covered with a black patch but it was obvious whose they were by the big red chicken logo on the front.

I always assumed, at least here in the US, that it was sort of a spite thing. Basically the producers wanted to use a beverage in the scene and went to say Coke asking for them to cough up some money for the placement. If they didn't pay up, the producer would still use the can of Coke but would block it out.

Maybe Coke isn't a great example since that could easily be any number of drinks. But let's say you were shooting a scene that needed a certain style of motorcycle or car/truck/etc. You might not have a lot of choices to get the look you were going after, but the manufacturer might not want to pay up either. So you de-logo the vehicle.

Of course, I have no factual knowledge to base this on, it's just speculation based on my assumption of the greed in the industry and how blatant product placement has become.

I've been working in automotive advertising a long time (WAY too long ). At least on our end, another company's logo is their property. You can use their vehicles in a competitive context, but better be careful not to show that logo. It becomes a trademark/copyright infringement sort of thing. We'd have the art department cover all badges, wheel centers, etc. prior to a shoot.

I do have a motorcycle-related anecdote, however. Maybe some ten years ago, we were shooting a brochure image with our vehicle towing a vintage factory Norton race bike. It was absolutely beautiful. Legal told us we would have to wipe (touch out) the Norton logo on the tank. Blasphemy! I DID track down the concern at the time reviving the Norton name, talked to their legal-types, sent them the image, and they happily granted permission in exchange for sending them a few copies of the finished brochure.

Has to do with use of trademarked logos. In the US permission from the trademark holder must be obtained before it is used in a commercial product. This is why insurance commercials that show cars always have the maker's logo pixalated out and t-shirts with logos are pixalated out of most reality shows.

Logical, but it doesn't seem to explain, for example, why on American Chopper a few years ago they built a bike for Siemens, they talked about Siemens, they had visits to the factory and Siemens people supplied the electric motor for the bike, Siemens Siemens blah blah blah, and yet the logo on the bike was still blurred out. It seems inconsistent to me. I've seen the same with quite a few OCC builds.

(admittedly, they'd do better pixelating the bike and leaving the logo on some of them, they're so ugly, but that's another story...)

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